Kyrie Irving Confident that Cavaliers Can Make the Playoffs

When LeBron James left Cleveland for Miami, the Cavaliers were left for dead by most observers. Kyrie Irving’s emergence has given Cavs fans reason for hope again, and the young point guard thinks his team has a good shot at qualifying for the postseason in 2013. From ESPN Radio (via SRI): “Whether the team is more motivated because people outside of Cleveland aren’t expecting much from the Cavs: ‘Absolutely, absolutely. At the beginning of last year nobody had any expectations and going into the All-Star break we were sitting in the eighth seed or fighting for the eighth seed. I feel like we can definitely compete with everybody and we have some tremendous wins last year that kind of get overlooked and we’re always going to be overlooked since LeBron left but it’s time to move forward and we’re going to continue to move forward with the team that we have and we’re going to continue to get better every single day.’ […] ‘I have high hopes for us. Obviously our number one goal is to make the playoffs this year and we’re definitely going to attain that as long as we continue to get better and as long as we compete every single night. Last year, like I said, we had a few limitations but when we were playing those good teams, especially in the second half of the season not having the pieces we needed to compete every single night with the best, it definitely hurt us but this season we added some new pieces and I feel like everybody is definitely taking that next step and getting better as a pro. I’m really excited to get the thing started. I’m healthy, Andy is healthy, Dion (Waiters) is healthy so I’m just happy to see where this thing can go.'”